The History of Medicine Springs Mustangs

The Earliest Years

It all has to begin somewhere—and for the Southwest Spanish Mustang Association, it begins with our forefather, Gilbert H. Jones. In his own words, he shares the love he carried for the Colonial Spanish Mustang and how that passion was born. From the challenges of moving his herd to the creation of the registry he poured his heart into, his story is one of grit, devotion, and vision. We are honored to share his words with you.

My grandfather, a Civil War Confederate cavalry man, left the Jessie and Frank James outlaw country in Missouri in 1872. He drove his covered wagon, pulled by four Steel Dust mares, to north Texas, locating at Spanish Fort, almost on the banks of Red River. In that very place, H.J. Justin started his famous frontier cowboy boots shop, near Red River Station, the beginning of Chisholm Trail. Justin’s handmade boots were in great demand by cowboys driving north thousands of Longhorn cattle out of Texas to Kansas cow towns with rail heads.

It was in this environment my father grew to manhood, among cowboys, outlaws and wild Indians just across Red River in the Indian Territory. he saw thousands of mustangs rode by cowboys in the cattle drives near his home. At that time, buffalo hunters were exterminating the great herds just west of where he lived. Wagon after wagon were passing his father’s house, loaded with buffalo hides going to Fort Worth to market. The Comanche Indians were still off and on their reservation, occasionally raiding in Texas, riding their fancy fleet pinto ponies. However, their freedom was nearing an end as their source of food, the buffalo, was practically killed out. The government was turning the land over to the white man and determined that the Indians would become reservation farmers. The Army had already slaughtered thousands of their ponies, which the Indians prized above everything else.

In early 1900, the government opened up a vast area for settlement by drawing in Indian Territory. My father rode to Fort Sill, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) and was quite lucky in drawing 160 acres of land just across Red River from where he was raised.

He told of seeing, while on this trip about fifty Indian boys, 8 to 14 years olds, riding their ponies of every color from the top of a hill to a cache creek about half a mile away. They would ride single file at full speed up to the creek bank and dive off their ponies into a deep hole of water. Their ponies would run off a short distance and start grazing, waiting for their riders to return. No doubt these boys looked forward to someday being buffalo hunters and warriors. I think my father telling me this true story kindled my desire in later years to own a colorful mustang band.

My father married my mother in Texas and moved immediately to the homestead he had won. My mother’s family had moved from Mississippi to Texas in a covered wagon in 1880. My grandmother was part Cherokee Indian and both my grandfathers were life-long breeders of running horses. So I think I inherited my love for horses honest.

I was born on my father’s homestead in Indian Territory, November 10, 1906. The country was soon getting settle up and my father started moving west when I was seven years old. I was the only child and my father taught me very young to ride, swim, shoot guns and drive teams. I started riding at six years old on a black mustang cross gelding named Old Tough, my father’s pet saddle horse. these were the essentials of life for boys in that day and time. My mother was a very good horsewoman; she rode and drove teams all her life. I owned my first horse when I was ten years old. My uncle gave me a little mare named Susie, a 900 lb. Coyote dun Indian Territory mustang. She has blood in her veins to be proud of; her dam was a Coyote dun Texas horse that won the 160 acre homestead in northern Indian Territory in the early day land run. This stallion was fast and had stamina to hold it for miles. When I was growing up, my mother’s brother was breaking many mustangs and Standardbred/Mustang crosses. He gave me all his old horse training books and always told me that mustangs and Indian ponies were the world’s best long distance endurance horses. No doubt this was that mustangs and Indian ponies were the world’s best long distance endurance horses. No doubt this was a great influence on me liking mustangs.

By the time I was fourteen years old, I had ridden every mile from where I was born at Hastings, then Oklahoma, to the New Mexico border on Susie. Our first move was from Hastings to Judd, Texas on the Brazos River. I drove a small herd of cattle behind my father’s covered wagon. We only stayed there two years. My father decided to move on west to Seagraves, Texas on the New Mexico border, which was on Llano Estacado. So I drove a larger herd this time on the same mare behind the same covered wagon. These moves were made in dead of winter with snow storms, blizzards and sand storms to face. A boy had to take life as came in those days to help his family survive.

Seagraves was a new town that the Santa Fe Railroad had built a branch in, for shipping the vast hers of cattle driven out of New Mexico and all directions from Texas. At that time, it was the largest cattle shipping point in the United States. It was truly a land of cowboys and mustang horses. These big ranches all had cowboys working for them with a reputation as being top bronc riders. Between the different ranches that had the best riders, there was naturally quite a rivalry and the one main street in Seagraves was where the contests were settled, while the vast herds were being held awaiting cattle cars.

The Llano Estacado was called the staked plains by Coronados conquistadores and so named from the cane-like stem growing out of the center of the many yucca plants, where were locally called bear grass. These stems had the appearance of stakes driven into the ground. The vast plains, almost as level as a dance hall floor, were devoid of any trees. For centuries, it had been the favorite buffalo hunting ground of wild Comanche and Kiowa Indians, called the lords of the southern plains. It was truly a land of mustangs, buffaloes, and the dreaded lobo wolves.

Laguna Sabino was eight miles east of where we lived. It was the biggest of several salt lakes, covering ten sections of land. It was covered with about two inches of salt brine water. All around the edge were rough brakes with thousands of diamond back rattlesnakes, fossil rocks and scrubby cedar trees. At each end of the lake were clear, fresh water springs where the Indians got their supply of drinking water, and water for the hundreds of ponies and mules. This was also a very big Indian burial and campground for centuries where the famous Indian, Chief Quanah Parker was born in 1849.

For centuries, the Indian carried on a trade at Laguna Sabino with the comancheros of New Mexico. These were a very unscrupulous bunch of renegades who would trade guns and ammunition for stolen mules, horses, and cattle as well as captured Indian women and children. These would be sold as slaves in New Mexico. And no questions asked as anything once on Llano Estacado was out of reach of the long arm of the Texas Rangers.

New Mexico had an agreement with the Indians for this trade and this domain was a barrier between the hated Texans, known as Tejanos and New Mexico. For many years, no white man dared penetrate this desolate and supposedly waterless country. As a matter of fact, the sources of water were unknown by anybody except the Indians.

It was in this atmosphere that I grew to manhood and at seventeen, I began acquiring the mustang blood I have today. Although as my mustang experience unfolds, the reader will see that, at several stages in my life, I have been almost wiped out of the blood I started with, but never completely, always having a few of the original blood left. At seventeen, I traded a bull for a very old, well-trained mustang stallion. He had been an iron grey, but had turned white. He weighed 800 lbs. and stood 14 hands. I believe he was a s pure a mustang as ever lived. At that time, many little iron grey ponies were scattered over the country, the grey being one of the Barb horse colors. I bred my first little mare, Susie, that I had ridden to that country, to this grey stallion, named Grey Eagle.

The result was one of the nicest fillies I ever saw. She was a palomino color, then called a claybank, speedy and really had cow sense. I named her Blondie and she was a natural running walker. I was also buying and trading for a few outstanding mares. Horses were cheap at that time and though money was hard for me to get, I was slowly accumulating what I thought to be the purest in the country.

Grey Eagle had died, but not before I got one more filly out of him and Susie. I named her Little Coalie because she was black as a crow, with one white sock on a rear foot. Her mane and tail were long and heavy. Then Susie died of old age as well. At this time, I traded a .30-.30 saddle gun for an old, highly trained roping stallion named Baldy Sox. He was an apron faced bay roan, with four white socks with dark eyes and eyelids. I bred him to Blondie, getting a red roan filly I named Comanche Squaw. The next year, I got a blood bay filly from Little Coalie and Baldy Sox; naming her Miss Comanchero. About this time, Baldy Sox died with blind staggers.

I had traded for Old Dunny Boy as a two year old; he was the best stallion I ever owned. He was a true buckskin, no stripes with a black mane and tail and a silver overlay. His mane was long and heavy and he had roan hair at the base of his tail, a big, bald face, glass (blue) eyes with dark eyelids, big mustache and pin ears that at times almost touched at the tips. Old Dunny Boy had a very small muzzle with very crescent nostrils and a heavy jaw. He had no chestnuts on his legs and he stood 14 hands, weight 925 lbs. His sire was a perfect red roan and the dam was a bay pinto overo Indian pony. I considered his breeding the very best. I had bought and traded for three of the best mares I had ever seen before or since. Their names were the Bobtail Dun, a honey-colored true buckskin; the Gotch-eared Dun, a true claybank as classified today and Laguna Sabino, a sorrel and white pinto. I had also bought a mare I named Miss Staked Plains; she was a rare brown grulla color.

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